April, 2005 

How Can Anyone Deny?

“And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!" Mark 15:39

For those who were close to Jesus, even at the time of His crucifixion it became obvious that He was no ordinary person. The events of Good Friday had not even entirely unfolded yet, but there were those who saw Jesus’ glory! He had not yet been taken down from the cross, placed in a tomb, and had guards placed around His body, but there were those who felt the ground shake, saw the sky darken and proclaimed Him as the Son of God! How much more do we who encounter Him risen and triumphant over the grave proclaim Him as Lord and Savior of all??

We who have the benefit of ‘hindsight’ and can see Jesus’ ministry and purpose in full view ought to have an advantage over those we read about in the pages of the Gospels. We see clearly now what was hidden and obscured from those who walked with Jesus: that even though He suffered and was persecuted and allowed Himself to be crucified, that in fact He was raised from the dead and is seated at God’s right hand with all power and authority! Yet, many today would deny that Jesus was anything more than a great moral ‘teacher.’ For me this “does not compute!”

Author C.S. Lewis (in the Problem of Pain) agrees. He writes: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.” Knowing what we know about Jesus, how can anyone deny that He is who He claimed to be? – God’s only Son, our Savior! In His Name.